New Peer 1 Research Reveals that 81% of Consumers Won’t Shop on Slow Websites this Holiday Season

For online retailers, the holiday season can help boost sales numbers for the year—but it can also mean disappointed customers or a poor public perception. So how can e-retailers ensure the former? By making sure their website is able to stand up to the pressure of higher-than-normal traffic. To help put that in perspective, today, PEER 1 Hosting is releasing the results of a survey about what U.S. consumers expect from eCommerce websites this holiday season—and what will prevent them from opening their wallets.

What really stood out to me was the finding that eight in 10 consumers will not shop on a site that can’t deliver a faultless online shopping experience during the holidays. Further, two-thirds say they’ve abandoned an online shopping cart because of website time-outs or slow page loads, meaning lost dollars for e-retailers.

In order to capitalize on this month’s high traffic levels, it’s clear that retailers must ensure the best possible online shopping experience for their customers. That will likely pay off—27 percent of consumers plan to spend more money online this year than they did last year, meaning the online eCommerce “pie” is still growing.

Below is an infographic summarizing the findings, which you can also download here. For more of the findings, be sure to also follow us on Twitter and look out for more posts here on the blog!